League of Legends Season 4: Game Developer Quoted 'Greedy,' Riot Games Say 'You Don't Have to Spend Money Just to Play'

"League of Legends" players complained regarding the lack of new client for the game's fourth season from a thread in Reddit. Riot Games President defended developers who were accused of being greedy and emphasised freedom to play without paying at all.

Reddit Complains

Reddit users complained the lack of new client for "League of Legends" seasons 4 and called the company and its developers "money hungry." They also criticised Riot Games for shutting down player efforts to create custom clients such as the user-made clients by Riot including Wintermint, a program uses 80 per cent less memory than "LoL's" official client.

Riot Games President, Marc Merrill, posted rebuttals on Reddit and defended the game's developer about accusations of being greedy.

"It's pretty frustrating when people try to position us as greedy," Merill rebutted on Reddit.

He also explained the situation based on his company's perspective:

"1. We build pretty much the first successful free online game in the west that core gamers actually really like and play.

2. We did this by building a really fun game, constantly investing over and over to grow and improve this game and by NOT selling power or being money hungry. If you compare of League of Legends entertainment per hour to every other form of media, we're the lowest around but the easiest examples to think of are: movies, magazine, books, box games, etc.

3. Millions upon millions of our players spend zero dollars on league and enjoy it endlessly. We're COMPLETELY OK with this. Greedy how? You do not have to spend money, it is completely opt-in.

4. We spend tens of millions of dollar building a pro-esports scene to help some of your best players become global superstars who make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

5. We build a TV show that also costs millions and we run ZERO ads on it to deliver a great experience to our players, entirely free."

Merill's Further Explanation

Merill completely disagreed with claims of "greedy" and "money hungry" comments from Reddit users regarding the several factors on the fourth season of "LoL." Even executives at Riot Games themselves are gamers.

"We play the sh** out of League of Legends. When servers go down, we flip out. When we don't deliver on something we promised, we flip out ... and change the world internally," he explained on Reddit.

Merill pointed out that the company is driven towards engagement, which means creating cool games, delivering value and enabling more people to play. He ended his post on Reddit that Riot Games prioritises the ambition of making great games instead of desiring money ahead of everything else.

"So, no offense - but I completely disagree with your greed accusation and yes, it pisses me off because I've spent the last 8 years of my life building this company, game and team to deliver great value and to treat players well," Merill closing note.

"League of Legends" has reached the global sensation level over the past few years and attracted more than 32 million monthly players. Riot Games takes an estimate of $200 million yearly even if most of these players don't pay just to play. "LoL" has already established clients in several countries in the world including Australia, Canada, Europe, Philippines and South Korea. It is the most played PC game in the world, according to numbers of hours played based on the 2012 Forbes article.